Can I choose to scan a specific folder from a drive with plex?

General Discussions
1

Let me just start by saying that I started using Plex a couple of months ago, so the external hard drive that I use to store my movies was orginized in seperate folders by movie genre.

Now I just want to add 2 or 3 new movies to my “movie Library”, for this I have a specific folder that I call “New Movies”.
Here is what I do, I go to movie library on plex and choose edit, then I choose add folders, then I choose the hard drive in my computer where I store all the movies, which in this case is drive H, then I choose movies on that drive and then I choose the “new movies” folder where I store the new releases and press ADD, then I hit save changes, as soon as I hit save changes, plex scans all folders in the hard drive, not just the chosen folder.

Will Plex always scan the whole drive even when I choose a specific folder?

2

Does Plex scan the whole hard drive even if you choose a specific folder?

3

It depends on how you have it set up. If you have one movie library that points to several folders, then yes… Plex will scan the entire library in most cases.

You can try enabling this to see if it helps:
Settings > Server > Library > Run a partial scan when changes are detected

The only other thing I can think of is to establish a new movie library for the new movies. You can have more than one library type, but they won’t mix together when surfing them. I do this, keeping things I DVR separate from my full shows.

4

@luigy39 said:
Does Plex scan the whole hard drive even if you choose a specific folder?

PMS will, worst case scenario, scan from the top-most referenced directory name (the ‘root’ given… e.g. /movies/A-K)

There is currently a problem with the scanner and Partial Scan and how that interacts with media which is not matched. Engineering is working on it

1 Like
5

Any word on this? I have 60TB of shares on 15 drives with both series and movies spread across every drive, so scanning the whole library every time I want just 2 episodes to become visible or more likely, have added a new series is going to take the toll on the drives.

1 Like
6

should the partial scan issue be resolved by now?
cause I think I have that issue
I tried a partial scan and it did show the movie on the dashboard but did not get any metadata

Plex\ Media\ Scanner -v -s -c 1 -d "/media/Filme/The Big Lebowski (1998)"
GUI: Matching 'The Big Lebowski'
GUI: Score for 'The Big Lebowski' (1998) is 100
GUI: Requesting metadata for 'The Big Lebowski'

I then tried to update the metadata but this resulted in a complete scan of the whole library
(Edit: I think the command is just not supported in that way: plex scanner cli )

Plex\ Media\ Scanner -v -r -c 1 -d "/media/Filme/The Big Lebowski (1998)"

I am on pms version 1.16.3.1402 on ubuntu 18.04

7

Please create a fresh thread,
Verify DEBUG logging on, VERBOSE logging off
Recreate the scan sequences
Wait for system to quiesce
Download all logs (Settings - Server - Troubleshooting - Download Logs )
Attach the ZIP file

I can look and see what’s happening.

1 Like
8

I think it was a permission issue
cause I ran the scan as root
I’ve re-set the plex user as owner to all folders removed the movie and added it again, and it worked
I will try it again and if needed create a new thread
thanks
regards

9

On Linux,

Directories are 755 with your username as the owner.
Files are 644 with your username as the owner.

The digits are Octal (base 8), representing the 4 (write), the 2 (read), and the 1 (execute/traverse)

Individually, they show are the three triplets rwxr-xr-x (755) , and rw-r--r-- (644)

Add up the desired flag bits and set the number.